July 15, 2015

Marybeth Rua-Larsen

À La Carte

Slick

is what it seems
like at first. They’re friendly and free with advice: a touch of baby oil in
the right places gives you shine and makes it slide. G-string rather than thong.
Heels improve on bare feet. It doesn’t matter what’s on top. It’s not on long
enough to be scrutinized. More is not more.

Emblems

come in all
shapes and sizes: Pasties – with and without tassels. Beer bottle labels the
bartender soaks off, dries and sprays with glue. Every bar needs a gimmick.
Pornographic cards. Lewd cocktail napkins and tape. On customer appreciation
night, sets of hands.

Calm

is what you
thought you could be while doing this to supplement your small scholarship and
pay your tuition.

Collarbones

should be seen
and not heard. Prominent enough to be admired but not sharp enough to hurt.
Everyone has an opinion on your body type and what men like. They like the same
thing, essentially, but if your package differs too greatly – your tits are too
small or your stomach too big –, it ruins the illusion of anonymous and tips
sag.

Drunk

is the objective
of each evening: if you don’t remember it, it couldn’t have happened. Each
grope, each pinch, each hard-on forced into to your backside, each time
you’recornered in the rest room hallway
and everyone else has disappeared, like the baby oil that’s been absorbed into
your skin. It was never there.

Hips

are what it
comes down to in the end. If you can focus them there, like Elvis, they won’t
see your face, the mask you can’t wear.

CP

Marybeth
Rua-Larsen lives on the south coast of Massachusetts and teaches at Bristol
Community College. Her writing has appeared in The Raintown Review, Angle, Cleaver, The Poetry Bus, Unsplendid and Free Inquiry. She won the Poetry
category for the 2011 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Competition in
Galway, Ireland and her chapbook, Nothing In-Between was published by
Barefoot Muse Press.